Technical and Vocational Institutions to be supervised by Ministry of Education

Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, the Minister of Communications has said government is working to bring all Technical and Vocational Institutions under the Ministry of Education to ensure the efficiency of the Technical and Vocational Education (TVET).

She said the Technical and Vocational under the Ministry of Education would assess the standardisation, resource mobilisation and regulation in order to ensure that technical and vocational education become the number one choice of the youth.

“We are currently working on a bill to be submitted to cabinet in order to get the approval of the TVET strategy of the country. In line with that, government will ensure that only managers with technical university backgrounds are put in charge of technical education”

The Communications Minister disclosed this when she delivered a speech on behalf of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the 16th Congregation Ceremony of the Accra Technical University (ATU), which also marked the First Graduation Ceremony of the ATU since it attainment of a University status in 2016.

She said government had put in place important initiatives to ensure that the decision to focus TVET did not become the lip service that had been paid over the years; and also, “for the “one factory per District’ agenda to excel, government will reinforce and increase access to technical and vocational institutions.”

Mrs Ekuful said education was a catalyst to attaining sustainable development and consequently important and appropriate investment must be made towards boosting the skills of the workforce.

She said for Ghana to become a high income country, it was vital to train and make available to industry highly skilled human resources to serve as the strategic drivers of the economy.

She expressed government’s commitment to continue to invest in skills training and apprenticeship under its industrialisation agenda to create jobs especially for the youth and to address the numerous challenges confronting the educational sector.

In all, a total of 222 Bachelor of Technology (BTech) and 4,080 Higher National Diploma (HND) Students graduated, comprising the 2016 and 2017 batch from the Schools of Engineering, Applied Sciences and Arts and Business and Management Studies.

In the BTech programmes, First Class represented 7.2 per cent, Second Class Upper represented 55.9 per cent, Second Class Lower represented 35.1 per cent whilst Pass was 1.8 per cent.

First Class in the HND represented 1. 26 per cent, Second Class Upper 22.8 per cent Second Class Lower 62. 2 per cent and Pass was 12.6 per cent.

Professor Ralph Kinston Asabere, the Chairman of ATU Governing Council appealed to government to revive the Wifi Project on campus initiated by the National Information Agency to enhance quality education amongst the student populace.

He appealed to the Minister of Education and other stakeholders, the GETFund and COTVET, to intervene with funding for the expansion of existing structures and logistics; and educational regulators, grant approval to run more programmes for varied choices of students to complement the Free SHS Policy.

Professor Edmund Ameko, the Acting Interim Vice Chancellor advised the graduands to continue to learn and improve themselves and brighten their future.

Mr Toku Mandela was adjudged the overall best graduating student, 2017 whilst Ms Afemeku Confidence Mawufemor was adjudged the overall best student for 2016 with both receiving cash prizes, citation and medallion.

The ATU initially established as a Technical School in 1949, commissioned as Accra Technical Institute in 1957, renamed Accra Polytechnic in 1963, elevated to a tertiary status in 1992 and converted to Technical University in 2016.